The Thorn Boy Read online

  Soon, the temple filled the sky before me. I reached the giant toes and began to climb the perilous steps that were carved into the folds of her robe. The ascent was long, and I paused at several of the terraces, cut into the goddess’ calves, where temple acolytes sold refreshment. By the time I marched over the hills of the divine knees, the sun was high in the sky, and my spirits had lifted a little. I walked along the plateau of her thighs, towards the mountain of her body. Many other worshippers travelled beside me, and some came hollow-eyed towards us; those who had spent a night in the fane, drunk on narcotic juices, dreaming for the goddess, and making the sacred offerings.

  I would have been missed at the palace by now. Porfarryah would be looking for me, eager for news of the previous night’s events. I did not care. I dreaded facing Porfarryah’s knowing glance, feeling as if my guilty thoughts were emblazoned across my face.

  At mid-day, I began the descent down the wide stair-case that led to the temple portal, which was situated at the statue’s groin. This last stage of the journey was short in comparison to the rest, and soon I entered through the wide-flung doors into the soft, perfumed gloom of Phasmagore. Here, ghost-footed priestesses, drifted by in robes of soft, russet muslin, swinging censers on the air, which unfurled ribbons of silvery-green smoke. White-skinned priests, clad in indigo robes that left one half of their chests bare, stood on guard before all the door-ways, their eyes rimmed in black and the dark, serpentine tattoos of their calling crawling across their arms.

  At the doorway to the Shrine of Bestowing, I paused to burn a pinch of incense at a huge brass font that was filled with smouldering coals. Many travellers from far lands came to visit Phasmagore, but only the natives of Tarnax would ever pass beyond this threshold. It was a shrine accessible only to young men and boys. Women had their own secrets chambers elsewhere within the complex. At fourteen, I had been initiated into the secrets hidden within the shrine, and knew that I would not be able to sample them for ever. Only the young and beautiful passed into the Shrine of Bestowing to offer the goddess the most precious gifts. It had been some time since I’d visited this place, and I approached it now as I had the last time; with excitement and fear. Two silent priests stood before the entrance, as still as if they were carved from milky marble. They did not challenge my approach.

  The shrine’s portal was hung with a tunnel of grey, swaying voile, which seemed to lift of its own volition as I stepped into it. Presently, I was surrounded by the whispering fabric, guided forward only by the gaps that appeared in the rearing veils. I was never sure whether I would find pleasure or pain beyond the grey, whether I would give or receive benediction. Eventually, the veils disgorged me with a final flutter into a small, dimly-lit chamber that was thick with the smoke of benzoin resin. A voluptuous priestess sat cross-legged on a stone bench by the wall, fanning herself with a palm frond, not to keep cool, I thought, so much as to enable her to breathe. She appeared slightly bored, clad in diaphanous trousers of voluminous black muslin, her round belly encrusted with jewels. The nipples of her heavy breasts were pierced by rings of gold and she wore a golden bone through her nose.

  I knelt before her, and touched my forehead to the cool flag-stones beneath her seat. ‘Sister, I come to make an offering.’

  The priestess tapped me with her palm frond. ‘Rise, supplicant.’

  I looked up at her and got to my feet. She took a sugared pastille from a dish on her left side and held it out to me. Bowing my head, I accepted it and placed it upon my tongue. The priestess nodded once, and pointed with her palm to a stone seat on the opposite side of room. Then she produced an hourglass from among the folds of her trousers, turned it over and set it upon the floor. I went to the slab and sat down. In silence, we watched the sands glitter through the waist of glass, and the pastille dissolved inside my mouth, the sugary taste subsiding to bitterness. The priestess sighed occasionally, and continued to fan herself with the frond. I felt the room grow larger around me, and heard the deep echoes reverberating throughout the vast temple complex. I heard cries and moans, ululations of delight and the softest whimpers of terror. The incense smoke began to take on forms before my eyes; twisting phantoms with yawning faces, spectral fingers raised to their silent mouths. My heart was beating fast, and I shifted on the stone. I could hear the hiss of the sand in the hourglass now.

  As the last grains sifted through, the priestess gestured for me to rise. I was unsteady on my feet, unsure whether to laugh or scream and run from the chamber.

  ‘Give yourself in entirety,’ murmured the priestess.

  I bowed uncertainly, nearly slumping to the floor and the doors to the inner chamber swung open with a sound of grinding metal. It was too late to turn back.

  Beyond the portal, all was in near darkness. I stumbled inside and the doors ground shut behind me. For a while, I sat on the floor, trying to clear my head, but the secrets of the pastille had occluded my senses. We took the drug to rid ourselves of earthly inhibition, to enable ourselves to make the sacred offerings without restraint. I could hear the low, urgent throb of drums in a chamber nearby and the wail of dancers as they made their spiralling devotions. Perhaps it was a troupe of lithe warriors, spinning round, pleasuring themselves for Challis Hespereth with quick fingers, so that their seed would fall upon her revered altars. My sex grew hot and thick at the thought of this image.

  There seemed to be no-one with me in the room. In that case, I would have to wait. Sometimes, if many had come to make an offering, the act of worship would take place here. But no feet approached me through the smoke. After a while, I got up and wandered further into the darkness, feeling with my hands for the yielding touch of flesh. Instead, my fingers encountered stone, and the incense smoke parted with my breath to reveal the wicked smile of Challis Hespereth in her wildest aspect. Here was no patrician goddess clad in acres of robes. She sat naked upon a plinth, gesturing for her worshippers to come to her, to learn the arcana of her hidden knowledge. She was fashioned of gleaming, dark green stone, her breasts nibbed with gold leaf. Her hair was a Medusan coil between them. I pressed my lips to her outstretched fingers, which were tipped with scarlet lacquer. In my befuddled state, it seemed she blinked and nodded in approval, gestured for me to pass on to the deepest chambers.

  I entered a narrow passage-way, and here the light was orange, the ceiling low. The sounds of the drums had faded. I ducked into the first of many oval doorways, and found the chamber beyond it empty. To advertise my presence, I unfastened the brocaded curtain that was hooked to the wall inside the door. An oil lamp flickered on the floor, and I went to sit beside it, upon a heap of cushions that smelled of musk and sweat and sweet resin. A statue of Challis Hespereth, with gleaming rubies for eyes, reclined upon a pedestal nearby. There was quiet hunger in her carved expression. I sat beside her with a straight back, the soles of my feet pressed together, my hands gripping my ankles. I was conscious of the idol’s patient stare, then my spine and the heavy pressure of my hair upon my back through the fabric of my silk shirt. Who would the goddess bring to me?

  There were foot-steps in the corridor beyond the curtain, furtive and cautious. Just the sound of them struck desire in my loins, and I felt my blood raise the spear of manhood towards my belly. I heard the scape of a soft shoe and then the curtain was lifted by a single hand. I saw the long slim arm and the dark shape of the body, a tumble of loose hair that fell around him like a frayed cloak. He brought a breeze with him that worried the flame of the lamp, and sent shadows of laughter across the face of the goddess. If I looked hard at her now, would her stone body sit up to pay attention? He let the curtain fall and stood before me in the room, golden in the light of the lamp. I felt my blood chill in my veins, freezing my engorged prick to ice. What illusion was this? He looked too much like Akaten, dressed in the tunic and leggings I had last seen him in, his hair unbound over his chest. I knew the effects of the pastille, and how it could warp the senses, but this flagrant manifestation of my desir
es was too much to bear. I must have made a sound, scrambled to my feet, but then his hand was upon my arm, and it seemed the lamp-light illumined only his eyes, which were golden brown.

  ‘Peace,’ he said, and the single word contained all the stillness of the world.

  Despite what my eyes told me, this could not be Akaten. He was too calm and confident, and in his demeanour seemed so much older. Also, no hysterical foreigner with tear-stained cheeks would ever pass into this shrine.

  ‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘You seemed familiar.’ I should not have spoken, for the words of the mundane world did not belong in this place. Also, it was impertinent to refer to the fact we might have met beyond the temple. What happened here was secret and must be forgotten once a worshipper left the shrine.

  He put a single, straight finger to his lips and smiled. I closed my eyes and leaned into his embrace. I felt as if this stranger knew me intimately. He was no earthly creature, but a son of Challis Hespereth herself, old with the wisdom of gods. He pushed me gently back onto the cushions and as I fell, I heard the sibilant slide of panels being opened in the walls, where priestesses would observe our devotions. He did not want to hurt me, nor me him. It was pleasure alone we sought, and we ventured along its many avenues. My body became nothing more than a delirious nerve of erotic energy. We were one creature, vibrating with the force of creation. Beyond the walls, the priestesses chanted in time to our rhythm, until the room was filled with a spinning cone of sexual power. Our congress was violent, but I was beyond feeling pain. I wanted to leave my seed inside him, his mouth or his body, but I orgasmed as he speared me, a jet of liquid pearl streaming from my body across the floor. Then he withdrew and pulled my head to his groin. I could smell myself upon him. He was slimed with mucus, unguent and traces of blood. Challis Hespereth demanded great sacrifice, but I am naturally fastidious and felt this was giving too much. In vain, I tried to free myself. He was too strong, his fingers were entangled in my damp hair, and he forced himself between my lips. I was almost swooning, half sickened, half eager, and sucked the salt bitterness of our mingled essences, until he filled my mouth with his seed. It seemed to last an eternity and I was afraid I would choke. But then he took my face in his hands, and freed himself. Kneeling before him, I pressed my head against his stomach, gulping for breath, inhaling the strong, musky scent of his flesh and our communion. I felt I had passed beyond some threshold of understanding and experience. We had taken the right path and he had wholly intuited the way to it.

  I had my hands curled around his buttocks, my fingers digging deeply into his muscles. His whole body was shaking. I heard him mutter beneath his breath and he pushed me away, but not with cruelty. I sensed he regretted that final act of our devotion, and felt he’d abused me. Shame for his abandoned behaviour had come upon him. It happened often, and was part of the penance. He stumbled blindly towards the doorway, gathering up his discarded garments. I wanted to call him back, speak to him, even though it was forbidden. In my eyes, he was still Akaten. I needed to tell him he had not offended me or hurt me, but even though I dared to whisper, ‘Don’t leave!’ he did not pause. When the curtain fell, I knelt upon the floor of the shrine, my clothes spread about me, my hands plunged between my knees. My vision was blurred by gritty light. My whole body throbbed in memory of his heart-beat.

  This visit to the shrine had not purged me at all, but quite the opposite. I had lived my desire and it had, in my heart, turned to aching, unquenchable need.

  How I managed to maintain a cool mien when I returned to the palace I cannot explain. The walk from the gardens and through the lower floors was a nightmare. People stopped me to chat idly, and their voices were claws across my mind. It seemed to take an age to reach my quarters.

  As I had anticipated, Porfarryah had been worried by my absence, then suffused with curiosity when I returned. She sought me out in my chamber. ‘Are you ill, Darien? You look feverish? Shall I order a sherbet for you?’

  I felt so nauseous and peculiar, I just wanted her, my dearest friend, to leave me alone. When she clucked around me in concern, tears welled in my eyes.

  ‘What has happened, Darien? What’s wrong? Where have you been all day?’

  I clung to her and wept, not just for release, but to stem her questions.

  She stroked my hair for a while, then said softly, ‘Are you worried about the Khan’s boy?’

  My heart seemed to convulse in my breast. Was the cause of my suffering so evident? I made a muffled sound against her hair.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ she said. ‘Alofel has had his pleasure. Now he will lose interest.’

  My panic subsided. I pulled away a little. ‘Have you seen him, the Khan’s boy?’

  She looked down at me tenderly, stroked my face. ‘No, but one of the king’s servants spoke to me briefly. The foreigner did not sleep with the king, and near dawn asked to be escorted to the temple to worship. He has yet to return.’

  ‘What?’

  Porfarryah’s eyes widened at the wildness in my voice. ‘It’s not that unusual. The Mewts worship Ma-ten-waya, Lady of the Rivers, and she is an aspect of Challis Hespereth.’

  ‘No, no!’ I cried. ‘It can’t be! It’s impossible!’

  Porfarryah looked frightened by my hysterical outburst. ‘What is it, Darien? What’s impossible?’

  ‘I went to the temple as well,’ I blurted. ‘To the inner chambers...’ I wanted to confess to her so badly, if only so that she could assuage my fears. But I knew I could not divulge the religious secrets of men to a woman. I would have to bear the consequences of her revelation alone. It couldn’t have been Akaten in the shrine. I was filled with a weird mixture of gratitude and revulsion.

  Porfarryah shook her head in confusion. ‘So, what happened there?’

  ‘I thought I saw Akaten,’ I gabbled. ‘I thought Alofel had... already bestowed privileges. If the foreigner has been allowed into the inner shrines, it might mean that Alofel intends to grant him status within the household.’

  Porfarryah smiled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’re imagining things, Darien. This boy is not a threat to you. He would only be allowed access to the outer chambers. You should know that. If you thought you saw someone that looked like him, it was because the idea of him ousting you was playing on your mind.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Porfarryah shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen you like this. Regain control, Darien. It’s not like you to be afraid or weak.’

  Afraid and weak. That was exactly how I felt, and it was an alien experience for me.

  Alofel did not call for my presence, and that night, I writhed sleeplessly on my damp, hot bed, with the taste of the shrine visitor in my mouth, the scent of him on my skin. I wanted to believe he had been a complete stranger, yet at the same time I yearned for him to have been Akaten. I wanted the Khan’s boy to appear in my chamber, tell me he had been thinking about me. I wanted to demand his head on a bed of lilies. Hate and love: were they the same thing? Had anyone else ever felt this way?

  The following morning I came across one of the king’s body-servants, Lazuel, as he carried Alofel’s dirty linen to the laundry. Naturally, I stopped him to ask for information, offering my own snippet beforehand to enhance his mood for gossip.

  ‘I hear the Khan’s boy visited the temple yesterday. That request must be a first for a captive of war!’

  Lazuel rolled his eyes. ‘I know about that. There are many firsts occurring in the chambers of the king!’

  Dread seized me, but I managed to smile. ‘Such as? I understand Alofel did not keep the boy with him the entire night.’

  Lazuel put down his basket and folded his arms. ‘Well, the lovely Akaten did not sleep with the king the other night, but this was because they stayed up together until dawn! I took the precaution of concealing myself in one of the dressing-rooms, just in case Alofel needed me, but spent a sleepless night. I overheard much of interest.’
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  ‘Indeed! Tell me about it.’

  ‘I will, for I think you should know. First of all, for several hours, they took a light meal together and talked. I managed to overhear Alofel asking many questions about the Khan. It’s clear that Harakhte fascinates Alofel. He was especially insistent upon knowing about Harakhte’s relationship with his people. Akaten said that many would kill themselves when they learned of the Khan’s death. Ordinary people in the street! It’s quite unbelievable. I think the boy must have been exaggerating, but Alofel didn’t seem to think so. The foreigner spoke so freely about Harakhte’s marvellous attributes, I thought the king would call for his guards and a sword to silence the insolent tongue! But no. He seemed oblivious to the snide criticisms. Perhaps he did not hear the words, but saw only the lips.’

  ‘What has happened to the famous grief then?’ I asked sourly. ‘The boy conversed well for a person who only days ago was slashing at his wrists.’

  Lazuel pulled a wry face. ‘Quite so. At the beginning of the conversation, the Mewt’s voice was dull and sad, but after an hour or so our little foreigner appeared to relax in the king’s company. He brightened up considerably, and even told a few comic tales about certain Mewtish dignitaries. The strangest thing is, I heard Alofel laughing. Have you ever heard that?’

  I shrugged uncomfortably. In truth, Alofel was not a person disposed to displays of hilarity, confining proof of his amusement to gentle smiles.